I am assuming that your a Windows 98 user as the choice.com file is a program that will prompt the user to make a choice in a batch program. Example would be if your running ZZTop in DOS. As the program runs it will prompt you to restore your system by entering a Y for yes or a N for no, thus you have to make a choice.

Is this the first time you have used your anti-virus software or were you using a another brand before? If your anti-virus software just found that choice.com is infected then the copy on your image file should be Ok.

If your file is indeed infected you might consider deleting it and then restoring it from your backup. It's just a matter of deleting it from the C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND directory and then copying a clean version back into that location.

For Windows 98SE, here is the file size, date and time of my copy of choice.com. If yours is indeed infected, I would imagine the date and time has been altered. If indoubt I would just delete yours and restore.

choice.com 5,239 4/23/99 10:22pm

Thanks for your reply. The choice.com file that was infected was in the root directory c:\ on my Win98se system. The one in the c:\windows\command is ok. Do I need to have a copy in the root directory also?

Also, I have been using PC-Cillin for awhile and it seems that choice.com in the root directory was bad when it came from Dell. Its file size is 1769 and is dated 3/22/00 and I took delivery 4/27/00. The choice.com in C:\windows\command has the same date and size as your file. This is why it is bad in my backup image also. I don't know why PC-Cillin just found it now. I sent the file to Trend-Micro for analysis. The slug virus changes the code in the .com and .exe files so this is maybe the file size is different. Otherwise it is not a vicious virus.

If I need to have choice.com in the root directory I guess I will move it. Please let me know if you think it should be in the root c:\ directory also.

The choice.com file in your c:\windows\command directory is sufficent. You can safely delete the one in your C:\ directory. Both directories are in the Windows search path and a file in either location will be found by Windows.

Sometimes a anti-virus program will report a false/positive on a file it thinks is infected. I would suspect though if the date and file size is different on the choice.com in your C:\ root directory then there is a good chance it is bad. I would just delete the suspect one and keep the good one in the c:\windows\command directory.

PC-cillin Pattern file 803 apparently was giving a false positive on some systems for choice.com as being infected with a slug virus. Download Pattern file 805 and I think you will find your system checks OK.